The Anti-Delinquent System

N i n e : Hot-Headed

How cute is Miko?! 

☆☆Dedication to @-autumnkisses ☆☆

N i n e : Hot-Headed

"You're home late," Mom says, looking up from her magazine as I enter the kitchen.

She's sitting at the breakfast bar, with damp blonde hair coiled into a cotton towel on top of her head. Her face is bare of makeup, exposing the freckles that dapple her cheeks like sunlight on a woodland floor. Her eyes, brown like Chloe's, scrutinise my shopping bags as I place them on the empty counter in front of her.

"It was fun," I say simply. I pad bare footed to the fridge and help myself to a can of lemonade. The speaker is playing an old eighties song in the corner of the room, and Chloe is standing beside the stove, wiggling her hips and stirring what looks to be a large pan of chilli. I flick her French braid teasingly as I pass her, before settling on the bar stool across from Mom. The can of lemonade hisses as I push down on the tag.

Mom purses her lips and glares down at the glossy image of Jennifer Aniston on her page. "You should ask before you help yourself to something."

"Sorry, Mom."

The flick of her page slices through the air. "Did you have a good time?"

"Yeah." I bite my lip a little to restrain my smile.

"We didn't know if you'd be hungry. I told Chloe to wait for dinner."

The urge to smile disappears. "Ah, I actually had pizza while I was out."

"Right," Mom says.

"Sorry, I should have said."

Mom frowns. "Chloe made veggie chilli. She knows you like it."

This time, I look at my sister. She's wearing fluffy socks and sliding around on the white kitchen tiles, her lips moving in synchrony with the cheesy pop hit playing out of the speakers. She doesn't seem too bothered by my lack of hunger. "Sorry, Chlo."

Chloe waves a wooden spoon. "It's fine, don't worry. We can always save leftovers."

"What did you buy?" Mom asks, unhooking her hair towel and releasing the damp blonde curls over her shoulders. She looks at my bags with interest. "Anything nice?"

I pull out a small white crop-tee from one of the Abercrombie bags, and hold it in front of my body to show Mom the fit. "Isn't it cute?"

A dimple forms between Mom's eyebrows. "Isn't it a bit...small?"

"I've worn smaller," Chloe calls from the other side of the kitchen.

Mom still seems sceptical.

"I was thinking with a pair of high-waisted jeans," I say with feigned brightness. "Maybe a cropped sweater. Style it so that it's not too revealing."

Mom looks back at the magazine. The squeeze of hope in my chest sinks down until it reaches the pit of my stomach and stays there, aching. I take a sip of lemonade, but my taste for it has disappeared in the bitterness on my tongue.

The kitchen door opens and my Dad strolls in, his hands dirty from the building site. He's a small man, around my height, with thinning dark hair and golden olive skin that he inherited from his Spanish mother. He's the head of a development company, and he comes home with burns, scars and dirt under his fingernails every day. As he passes by me in the direction of the faucet, he ruffles my hair and I squeak.

"Hey, kiddo. Nice top- is that new?"

"I bought it today," I reply, grinning at him. "I'll get you one next time."